OH BOY CAN I RUN FAST AND LONG!!!
When I was twelve years old I became a Boy Scout in Long Branch , N J. Our troop of about twenty met weekly at the Jewish Community Center on second avenue. I was one of the youngest in the Troop but I was the largest. It seems due to my size I always looked older and more mature than I was. Also, because of my appearance I was usually chosen to do the tasks that were unpopular with the others. Taking out the garbage, carrying about anything from books to gathering firewood for campfires. I was a two legged mule, just did anything I was asked to. The problem was I was asked to do things most of time that older kids could have done better and easier than me.
One day we had a very large storm. Long Branch area was hit especially hard. Being a beach area we had lots of ocean and river activity. During some of these storms it was not uncommon for fishing and recreational boats to capsize and occasionally have fatalities.
One of the nearby bodies of water was the Shrewsbury River. A particularly large and dangerous body of water not very far away and very prone to accidents. I was somewhat familiar with the River since my oldest brother was once stranded in a small boat on the river during a storm and was rescued by the Coast Guard. We were really worried about him and we thought he was a goner.
Getting back to the story there was a father and son out on the Shrewsbury fishing in small boat when the storm hit shore. As a result the boat capsized and they didn’t find it for a day or two. The bodies of the father and son were recovered several days later. It was a terrible lost to the community and especially to the Scouts since the father was a Scoutmaster and the son was a Scout about my age. The tragedy was all over the papers and a date was set for the funeral. It was a given that it would be a fairly large funeral due to the family’s popularity. The funeral date was selected and all plans were made. Part of the planning included an honor guard of Boy Scouts and guess who was selected from my troop as it’s representative? Me, big Warren.
Well, the day arrived and I walked the two miles from my house to the funeral home. I had never been to a funeral home before and I did not know what to expect other than what I saw on TV in a spooky movie with someone like Boris Karlof. I feared death and everything about it. To me it was a horribly frightening thought. Remember I was just 12 years old.
When I arrived at my destination there were several people milling about outside of the funeral home. I climbed the large stone stairs to where I found a group of scouts and a leader. We were escorted into the funeral home for a short meeting where we received our assignments. The interior was loaded with very old antique looking furniture and oriental rugs. Everything smelled of a pungent perfume kind of odor. In the middle of the main room were two open caskets. One with the dad and one with son. My knees weakened at the sight of two corpses. Both coffins had an American flag and a troop flag standing next to them.
Some of the scouts were ushers to lead people to the folding chairs that were arranged around the area. There was a podium for the preacher to lead a service. I was stationed at the foot of the father’s coffin. To me, the entire set up was something right out of a horror movie. I was very weak and my heart was pounding.
Finally the doors were open for the public and lines formed at each casket for viewing. All kinds of people were there, both young and old. It was quite an affair and it seemed as if the line on my side was moving extremely slow. I was shaking and I just couldn’t look. I felt like I was going to faint. I couldn’t catch my breath. Oh God help me. Just about then, three very old women reached the head of my casket and bent over the gray faced man in the box and one of them said “look, he’s trying to say something”
That was all I had to hear. I let out a loud yell, something like WHOOOOOOA and took off like a rocket running through the crowd and out the front door and seeming flew over the entry stairs and ran as fast as I could for as long as I could. I was running so fast and so hard I think I could have out run Frank Budd. I don’t know when I stopped. I may still be running and not know it.
Some kind of memory.
MAY THEY REST IN PEACE
